The present invention relates to a method of monitoring an epicyclic assembly of a vehicle equipped with acceleration sensors, in particular a helicopter.
As is known, helicopter transmission members must be monitored continuously to immediately detect any faults or incipient malfunction conditions, and so prevent failure during flight.
For this purpose, the transmission is equipped with acceleration sensors, the signals of which are processed to determine any faults on the transmission. The methods currently used, however, to process the fault detection sensor signals are not sensitive enough to ensure fault detection well in advance of catastrophic failure, especially in the case of epicyclic assemblies, in which the signal, as opposed to being cyclic with respect to rotation of the connected shafts, is affected by approach and away movement of the planet gears.